An Analysis of the British Columbia Model to Cut Red Tape – How They Eliminated 1/3 of all Regulations in 3 Years. Wyoming is a society afflicted by distrust when it comes to taxes, an economy reliant on minerals, and government spending. Support for reducing regulation is broad-based as the general public supports such initiatives while lawmakers ...

Philip Baron, MBA At the Joint Revenue Committee meeting in July 2019, Wyoming lawmakers were presented draft legislation to increase the state fuel tax by 3 cents per gallon. According to the Wyoming Department of Transportation (WyDot), this tax would bring in $20 million a year. WyDot would receive 67% of this revenue, about $13.4 million, and t...

By Philip Baron, MBA Decreased mineral tax revenue has led Wyoming lawmakers to consider raising the tax on wind energy from $1 a Megawatt Hour to $5 a Megawatt Hour. Wyoming is the only state that has a true "Wind Tax" of $1 per kilowatt-hour. When compared to other wind producing states in the West, Wyoming has had a lack of wind development sinc...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff If a business is not taxed or regulated, does it exist? This is not just a question for practitioners of empirical ontology, but one that has real-world meaning in Wyoming today. Explains the Casper Star Tribune: Since the idea first appeared in the Legislature last year, regulated gambling was recognized by many to b...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff We have repeatedly warned against raising taxes in Wyoming. I have also warned that any attempt to "reform" our tax system without prior structural reforms to spending will result in tax hikes. Since the political conversation still trends in the direction of such reforms, it is time to revisit the last of these two w...

Don't miss the first episode of our brand new podcast "Liberty Talk." In this first episode staff members Evan Blauser and Philip Baron take a hard look at Wyoming Medicaid funding in special education. 

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff As Wyoming Liberty Group policy analyst Austin Hein recently explained in an excellent white paper, corporate welfare – also known as economic development – distorts investments and other use of economic resources. One of Hein's most important contributions is to explain, using Austrian economic theory, how programs s...

By Sven R Larson, Ph.D. How would you feel about a new kind of tax to fund our highways, one that was based on the miles you drive? Would you like to see it added to the taxes we already pay? In anticipation of topics that will be discussed in the interim committee season, please take a moment and consider the following idea. Suppose the legislatur...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff This Weekly Economic Review reports data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis on the composition of personal income in Wyoming. Main Point: Personal income in Wyoming is skewed toward equity-based and entitlement-based earnings. This should be taken into account when the legislature considers future changes to our sta...

by Wyoming Liberty Group Staff We have discussed how Wyoming's alcohol regulatory system limits new small business opportunities without effectively deterring destructive behavior attributable to alcohol. The state rankings of alcohol abuse measured by DUI arrests per capita and binge drinking rate highlight some similar rural states that have comb...